In a recent conversation about family meals, my friend Betsy confessed that while she enjoys cooking, she falls short in switching up her repertoire of recipes. She knows how to cook, she told me, but just can’t settle on what to cook.

It’s a sentiment I’ve heard a lot over the years, including in a recent thread about family dinner on my Facebook page. The barrage of recipes in magazines, blogs, and Instagram, although inspiring, can also be so overwhelming that many home cooks throw up their hands and stick with what they know.

With that in mind, I’m launching a new weekly feature on Mom’s Kitchen Handbook that I’m really excited about:

Weeknight Rescue

Weeknight Rescue is designed to help with the “What to Cook” part of the equation. Every Saturday morning I’ll send out a meal time game plan for the week. It will include:

1. Three dinner recipes curated specifically for that week

   I’ll choose the recipes based on seasonality, balanced nutrition, ease of cooking, and balance of flavors  (ie, I won’t include more than one pasta, slow cooker dish, or Mexican dish in the same week). Each recipe will include suggestions for what to serve on the side. Three recipes is a solid starting point for a week of meals, You can fill in the rest of the week with your tried-and-true staples, sandwich night, leftovers, and so on.

2. One recipe to batch cook

   I’ll include one big batch recipe with tips for how to use it in meals during the week. Examples might be a jar of homemade vinaigrette for dressing salads and vegetables or a pot of whole grains to turn into side dishes or stir into breakfast eggs.

3. One bonus recipe

   This will be something to brighten up the week, such as favorite cookies, granola bars to make with the kids, or a batch of muffins when berries are in season.

4. A shopping list

Every Weeknight Rescue will include a printable grocery list with the ingredients for the five featured recipes. You can decide to do them all or cherry pick the ingredients you need for just the recipes you plan to make.

To get WEEKNIGHT RESCUE delivered every Saturday morning to your inbox, be sure to enter your email in the subscribe box on the right side of this page.